


Lights Over Arby's

by tareacel



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Actually Requited Love, And Carlos realizes that, Awkward Romance, But it's not unrequited anymore, Episode Related, Episode: e025 One Year Later, Fluff, M/M, POV Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Sappy Fluff, Unrequited Love Hurts, cecilos - Freeform, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tareacel/pseuds/tareacel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After getting hauled out of the tiny city and getting bandaged up, there's only one place Carlos wants to go....only one person he wants to see, and one thing he has to make sure he will never have the opportunity to regret again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights Over Arby's

His phone beeped.

Tearing his gaze away from the twinkling lights above Arby’s, Carlos glanced down at the screen. His earlier text to Cecil had received one word in reply: “Coming”. He hadn’t meant that Cecil had to drop everything in the middle of the show…he would have been willing to wait. He knew what time Cecil’s show ended, knew it was close. If he turned on the radio in his car, which he was currently perched upon, he’d probably hear the Weather. But the radio was quiet. Usually he listened to Cecil whenever he could, but tonight he’d needed calm, needed the quiet to make sense of the thoughts in his head.

That wasn’t totally all of it, if he was honest. He hadn’t wanted to hear the pain, or the remnants of pain, in Cecil’s voice. He knew the station got news to Cecil in an alarmingly fast manner; he knew that better than anyone, so he had no doubt Cecil knew everything that had happened. If the thoughts in Cecil’s head were anything like the mess his had been… but no, that wasn’t quite right.

Carlos groaned as he shifted to put his phone back in his pocket, his other hand spreading out against the bandages that covered his midsection underneath his flannel shirt. Teddy Williams had emphatically grunted that he shouldn’t even be moving yet, and no matter his current vocation, the man was a licensed doctor. When Carlos had made it plain that what he had to do could not wait, the man had grudgingly bandaged him up, warning him not to overexert himself. But then the Apache Tracker... Carlos had used the opportunity to slip away while everyone else was busy watching an actually dying man.

Sure, Cecil’s thoughts might be suffering emotional whiplash at the moment, but they still had the advantage over Carlos’ poor brain… Cecil had at least already come to terms with his feelings. He made no secret about what he felt for Carlos, flaunting it on the radio every chance he got- at least until Station Management sent him memos about calming it down, and then he usually refrained for a few shows.

It had been a slower process for Carlos, intimidated and intensely creeped out as he’d been by Cecil’s immediate devotion, despite the fact that it only came across on the radio. The times Cecil had met with him in public, at first seldom but growing much more frequent of late, he’d been the epitome of tact and respectful distance. Even when Carlos would say something that made Cecil’s eyes dance with wonder and his face light up with a smile, he was never anything less than Night Valian proper. As a result, Carlos had never been put in a position where he had to examine his own slowly growing desires. Then tonight, that fragile world of naiveté and not-exactly-denial had been shattered. Faced with his own death, all of Carlos’ regrets had come out of the closet he’d stuffed them into. And hot on the heels of never seeing his mother or his sisters again had come the aching, paralyzing realization that he and Cecil could-have-been-should-have-been.

A footstep crunched on the gravel, then another. Carlos looked up to see Cecil standing there; the red light from the Arby’s sign glinting off the lenses of his glasses, reflecting fuchsia in his wide violet eyes. He looked at Carlos in badly concealed desperation; he was breathing hard as if he’d run a marathon. Carlos was powerless to do anything but look back. Cecil’s hair was disheveled and stuck out in a way that Carlos could recognize as having been pulled at. Hard. He had tugged loose his tie at some point, and his shirtsleeves were shoved haphazardly up his arms, exposing long dark lines and bands of tattoos that Carlos had only ever seen hints of before. Cecil, who usually and obviously did his best to look immaculate and beautiful whenever there was a chance he might see Carlos… was a wreck. Was speechless as well, for the first time Carlos had ever seen him, as the moment where they just stared at each other lengthened, growing heady with purpose. 

“What is it?” Cecil finally blurted out, his voice loud and somewhat strained after the heavy silence. The gravel crunched under his feet again as he came closer, and Carlos watched him fight to stop himself from coming too close, crossing his self-imposed line. “Wha—what danger are we in? What mystery needs to be explored?”

Carlos swallowed, shaken by the stuttered, uncertain and almost frantic tone in a voice that he’d never heard as anything but self assured. Oh Cecil…

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head, and although it felt like a shout, he knew it was barely more than a whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “After everything that happened…” his heart was pounding, “I just wanted to see you.”

Cecil froze. Carlos forced himself to breathe, tried to remind himself that he was the one with the least on the line here. He knew he had Cecil’s love. And if Cecil needed a moment to come to terms with what was happening, Carlos would gladly let him have it.

“Oh?” Cecil said, in that tremulous, desperately casual way that Carlos intimately remembered from his own romances in college. In reply, he simply patted the hood next to him in invitation. Cecil took the offer, but settled himself at a slightly less intimate distance than Carlos had indicated. Carlos looked at him for a long moment in a rush of exasperated sympathy. He’d had his share of unrequited loves in his life, and he knew how it felt to even consider the possibility that one might actually not be so unrequited after all. And he remembered the pain that came after if you guessed wrong. But dammit, did Cecil have to make this so… He looked back out at the sunset, thinking, trying to wrap words around his feelings. 

“I used to think it was setting at the wrong time,” he began haltingly until the line of thought crystallized in his head just like a sample of the odd liquid that leaked from the refrigerator in the lab every other Thursday. “But then I realized that time doesn’t work in Night Vale, and that none of the clocks are real.” He paused, looking at Cecil then, determined to make him understand, to leave nothing to chance ever again. “Sometimes things seem so strange, or malevolent, and then you find that underneath, it was something else altogether. Something pure and innocent.”

Bottom lip caught between his teeth, Cecil breathed in sharply through his nose. “I…know what you mean,” he said at length, but didn’t move at all. Carlos was caught between conflicting instincts. On one hand, he really, really wanted to just lean in and kiss the bitten lip, soothing it and soothing Cecil. He wanted to rest a hand on the other man’s chest, feel if his heart was beating as fast as Carlos thought it probably was. He wanted to run a hand through Cecil’s hair, smoothing it and erasing the pain of being pulled in grief and anguish… He wasn’t sure he dared though. He was getting the distinct impression that Cecil was on the raw edge of self-control, and he wasn’t sure what urge it was being suppressed. There was a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, and Cecil turned to look, humming curiously. Carlos darted a glance down at Cecil’s hands then, resting between his bent knees, clutched together so hard the knuckles of his fingers had blanched to white. Carlos looked back at Cecil’s face, Cecil who was studying the lights above the Arby’s far too intently, thinking far too much about something which was, to Carlos, so simple.

Weighing words was Cecil’s life. When it came down to it, Carlos had always been a man of actions and reactions. 

He slid closer to Cecil, closing the gap between them completely. Keeping his eyes on the sky, he leaned just slightly against the other man, saying nothing, sharing body heat, and brought his hand to rest on Cecil’s knee. And Cecil absolutely melted against him. His hands stayed clasped between his knees, but he leaned over, his head coming to rest on Carlos’ shoulder as a comforting, perfect weight. Carlos’ heart leapt in his chest, and he turned his head just enough to press his cheek against Cecil’s forehead. Cecil turned a little, curving his body against Carlos’ just a little more, and Carlos could feel that his heart was pounding frantically. He made a soft, soothing little nonsense noise, but said nothing. 

It felt like a kind of forever that they sat there like that, watching the sunset, the lights, and basking in the feel of new beginnings. But far too soon, Cecil shifted against him, pulling just far enough away that their bodies still touched, but he was sitting upright. He ran a hand through his hair, then turned and looked at Carlos with a shy kind of happiness.

“I have to get back…the show isn’t over.”

Carlos reached up, the backs of his knuckles grazing Cecil’s jaw, and the other man turned into the caress, pressing his lips to Carlos’ hand in a way that was not quite a kiss.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked. 

Cecil shook his head, fixing his tie deftly. “No, I… to be honest, I need a chance to…to process all of this.” He blew out a long breath. “It’s been a long, eventful evening.”

“Yeah,” Carlos breathed in return, his hand tingling with the feel of Cecil’s lips. When those lips curled in a knowing, oh so pleased little smile, Carlos blushed furiously and did his best to look anywhere but at Cecil. “Y-yeah, it has. I should… I should probably go find Teddy again. Make sure there’s nothing special I should be doing other than changing bandages.” 

“What you should go do is sleep,” Cecil corrected gently. “Or if you don’t think it’s safe to sleep, just pretend really hard. It’ll fool your brain as well as anything waiting to kidnap you. Although I don’t think you’re in any danger tonight, dear Carlos. The Sheriff’s Secret Police will probably—“He cut off abruptly as an unearthly howl came from the station across the road. “Thaaat’s probably my two minute warning.”

Carlos laughed, despite the hair standing up on the back of his neck. “Go, then. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Pfft,” Cecil waved a hand, slipping off of the car. “I stayed at my post while you were…” his playful expression faltered, but he recovered like the performer he was. “Station Management owes me a little slack for that. I mean, really.”

Carlos gave him a lopsided smile. “Go finish your broadcast, then. I’ll call you tomorrow. Lunch, maybe?”

“Why, beautiful Carlos, are you asking me out??” Cecil’s hand fluttered to his chest, but the twinkle in his eyes was all mischief. Carlos blushed again.

“I hadn’t, I mean, I—err—yes, but not—I mean…” He looked desperately at Cecil, who laughed.

“I understand. I’ll be there with bells on.”

“You really don’t have to wear those again.”

Cecil smiled. “We shall see, darling Carlos, we shall see.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into Night Vale! I did the thing that everyone does where you see all the gorgeous art and go "wtf is Night Vale" and then you find it. And you listen. And you understand. I hope I did this scene, and these characters justice. I was studying for a Psychometrics exam and listening to Fanmixes (to keep myself sane) and suddenly this popped, almost fully written, into my head like a hallucination brought on by eating too much Jerry's gluten-free taco salad.
> 
> I actually am usually very descriptive when I write, and I did my best to tone it way back with this... I wanted to keep Cecil and Carlos both as various-headcanon-friendly as I could. I did give nods to a few features that seem to be almost universal, as far as Cecil is concerned, but for the most part I REALLY didn't want to break anyone out of the story due to conflicting headcanon. I hope it succeeded...
> 
> So I'll just leave this here, in humble offering, and I hope that people read, and like, and if you do, please leave me a comment! I'd love to hear what you liked, or what I could have done better! Thanks for reading!!!


End file.
